


The Taste of Fresh Yakiniku

by yoshizora



Category: Chainsaw Man (Manga)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28502580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoshizora/pseuds/yoshizora
Summary: Denji receives an unexpected guest at dinnertime.
Relationships: Denji & Quanxi, Denji/Makima (one-sided), Makima/Quanxi (one-sided)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 46





	The Taste of Fresh Yakiniku

**Author's Note:**

> not canon-compliant, probs gonna be jossed by part 2, blah blah blah, MAPPA HYPE 
> 
> i was thinking, what happened to all the hybrids after makima's death? do they just go off to do their own thing or do they have lingering feelings about makima? also i miss quanxi a lot

He can’t go back to the apartment he’d been sharing with Power, because all their garbage would still be strewn everywhere and the Playstation is gathering dust right where they left it, _Tekken_ paused in the middle of a match (unless the landlord cut the power out by now, which seems kinda likely, since no one’s been paying the bills). Even if there wasn’t a pissed off landlord waiting for him he wouldn’t go back. He can’t go back because there’d be no one there, only empty ramen cups and unwashed bedsheets and an unfinished _Tekken_ match.

His new place is smaller and has less amenities. The bedroom isn’t cordoned off from the main living space, that’s how small it is, but it’s _his_ and his only roommates now are Meowy and all of Makima-san’s dogs.

Makima-san’s dogs are idiots. They don’t know what Denji eats while they chow down on their dry kibble. Denji is still kind of jealous of them, but when he looks into their eyes and sees nothing but empty-headed joy, he isn’t sure what he feels. They go nuts whenever he cooks because it smells good, though, so there’s that.

The meat’s sizzling and the dogs are barking when someone knocks on the door.

Funny, how he thought he’d be afraid of that kind of thing after everything that happened. Answering doors— opening doors have brought nothing but pain and misfortune. It’d only make sense, right? Like someone being afraid of dogs after being bitten by one.

All he can think of right now is the smell of the cooking meat and how the dogs are barking like a chorus from hell.

“Alright, alright— I get it! Shut up, I can’t hear myself think!”

It’s just a couple steps to his right, but one of the dogs is in his way so he has to nudge it aside. He shoves the door open without hesitation.

“Good evening, Chainsaw,” the woman with the eyepatch says.

Denji stares at her.

The dogs have gone silent, standing behind him with wagging tails.

She brushes past him and leans down to take her shoes off, setting them aside. When she straightens up and enters the apartment, the dogs instantly swarm her, sniffing and wagging and panting and so very excited at this new person. They’re not barking. They usually bark. Denji feels the hairs on the back of his neck prickling.

“Uh…”

“Smells good,” she says, hands shoved in the pockets of her fur-lined coat. She glances around, at the futon that Denji hadn’t bothered putting away, the ratty old couch set in front of an equally ratty TV, the low table with the wobbly leg where he eats his meals, the array of dog bowls and the one scratching post that Kishibe had generously donated for Meowy. It’s paradise, Denji had once grimly thought to himself, but now he feels a surge of indignation at the way this woman is looking at his stuff. She didn’t even ask if she could come in! What gives!

The woman doesn’t pay any mind to the dogs. Once they realize this new person isn’t going to give them pats, they disperse through the apartment to sit or lay down.

Denji still stares.

It instantly clicks.

“You’re that—“ he says, then scratches his hair. How does he describe her? “The… spiky one. With the arrows.”

She gives him a blank look.

“I saw you naked,” he says. He’s sweating. A nervous laugh bubbles up in his throat. “When that freaky Doll Devil made those doll people attack me, you were there. Naked. You told me to kill them without thinking.”

And then he saw her again, but not naked. She was wearing a suit and standing very close to Makima-san. He cut her head off. Twice. Well, it was Pochita who cut her head off, but he dimly recalls it amidst the carnage. It didn’t seem that important at the time. It still doesn’t.

He can’t keep cooking without turning his back to her. So he remains where he is, fumbling behind him to pull the door shut.

Damnit, she has _really nice tits._ Figures that he can’t remember how exactly Pochita managed to cut her head off (twice!) but he remembers what her tits looked like. They were… perky and kinda big, but not too big, like the right size to comfortably grasp. They’re probably really soft, too. He flexes his fingers without thinking. The woman’s eye flicks down to the movement, then back up to his face.

 _What the hell. Say something,_ he silently thinks, lopsided grin twitching. _Don’t just stand there after inviting yourself in, you asshole…!_

As if he’d want to feel her tits! Even if they’re perfect for holding! She tried to kill him once, and then she helped him out with that horde of doll people, but then she tried to kill him again! They could be the nicest tits in the world and he wouldn’t even poke them!

Maybe…!

“You have a boner.”

“Aw, shit—!”

One of the dogs barks. Denji scrambles for a dish towel and holds it over the crotch of his sweatpants, knees awkwardly bent as he waits and prays and grits his teeth and stares up at the ceiling. Focus on the smell of the meat. Makima-san! Damnit, what a shameful thing to do right in front of Makima-san.

The woman sits down at the table, crosslegged, facing Denji. She somehow doesn’t seem bothered at all.

A thought occurs to him.

“H-Hey, if you’re here because you love Chainsaw, just like all the other girls in Japan…”

“I like women.”

Denji collapses on the floor and pulls himself over to the table, to sit across from her. He practically gasps out, “Whoa! Me too!”

“I’m here to see if what Kishibe said was true,” she says. “You found a way to kill her for good?”

The hairs on the back of his neck are prickling again. Denji lowers the dish towel.

“Don’t think I’m here to kill you. I’m not interested in revenge.” She drums her fingers against the table, slightly tilting her head. He can’t tell if she’s smiling or frowning. “Kishibe didn’t send me here, either.”

“… I’ve been trying out new recipes and getting good ingredients from the local market. Turns out there’s lots of ways to prepare meat. Never even heard of most of the stuff I’ve been reading up on. You know people can eat raw horse meat? _Basashi._ It’s a delicacy, I guess.” Denji isn’t quite sure why he’s telling her this, but he figures he doesn’t need to explain anything either. If she’s not here to kill him, then that’s great. Whatever. “—Crap, the meat’s gonna burn. One sec.”

“Have you tried her raw?”

“Uhh, not yet.” Denji swipes at his forehead with the dish towel and scoops the meat out onto a plate, pouring the rest of the sauce over it straight from the pan. Most of it’s blackened on one side, but not too bad. Better than some of his first attempts, at least. He grabs his chopsticks and brings the plate back to the table.

The woman watches him in silence as he claps his hands together and thanks no one in particular for the meal.

Bite. Chew. Swallow. “Oh, yeah, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Quanxi.”

“‘Aight.”

“How does she taste?”

Bite. Chew. Swallow. “… I added too much ginger. Bleh.”

He shovels some rice into his mouth. That helps temper the strong flavor. Denji can feel the dogs staring at him from the other side of the apartment, but they’re not trying to nose at his legs and beg for scraps like they usually do. Maybe if Quanxi’s presence stops the dogs from acting like crazed idiots, he should ask her to stop by for tomorrow’s dinner again. Ha.

But it’s a bit awkward eating his food while she watches. She’s not saying anything and he can’t tell what she’s thinking. There’s no tilt to her lips, no crease between her brows, no squint to her one visible eye, absolutely nothing. She may as well be watching a dog devouring kibble.

Don’t think about her boobs. Don’t think about her boobs. Don’t think about her boobs.

He never saw Makima-san naked. Denji didn’t watch Kishibe butcher up her body and package her into those convenient little boxes for the fridge.

So Denji isn’t sure if he’s eaten the meat from her tits yet. The boxes weren’t labelled and Kishibe cut up the meat so well he can’t tell which bits came from which parts. Would the meat from her breasts taste different from the meat from her thighs? He had thought about it before, but it didn’t really excite or arouse him in the way he thought it would. Turns out that eating another person isn’t really sexy, even if that person was a devil and he’s doing it out of L.O.V.E.

No matter which parts of her body the meat came from, it’s all delicious. Even if he burns it a bit or adds too much ginger.

“I don’t have any beer. Just soda and water. If you want some you can take a bottle, but only one. I ain’t running a hotel,” Denji says with his mouth full. “And if you wanna stay the night, I don’t got extra futons either. The dogs will let you use them as pillows, but they shed a lot.”

“That’s a generous offer, Chainsaw.”

He swallows. “Denji. D-E-N-J-I.”

One of her brows quirks up. “There’s a difference?”

“What kinda question is that?” Denji makes a face and takes another mouthful of rice. “‘Coursh there ish. ’M Denji _an’_ Chainshaw, but—“ He swallows his food. “I’m Denji first, Chainsaw Man second.”

For the first time since she barged in, something that resembles a smile flashes across Quanxi’s face. It’s not a _normal_ smile from a _normal_ person, because it doesn’t quite reach her eye, but it’s different from Makima-san’s warm and scary smiles that didn’t really look all that normal either, in retrospect. Denji pauses mid-chew and squints at her.

“Think carefully about what you do with that reputation, Denji. It’s only a matter of time before more people around the world come to get a piece of Chainsaw Man. China will be making another attempt when they notice I haven’t returned.”

“If it’s pretty girls, then let ‘em come.” Denji waves his chopsticks at her. “Hey, what’re the girls in China like?”

“Petite. They have soft faces and even softer lips.”

“For real?!”

“Mmhm.”

“Someday… maybe I’ll visit China…”

“I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Huh? Oookay, what about Europe? Or America? How’re the girls there?”

“European girls are taller than Chinese girls. They have more muscle.”

“Hmmm… not really sure if I’d be into a girl with more muscles than me.”

“Don’t knock it ’til you try it.” Quanxi actually looks like she might be enjoying herself. She rests her chin on her palm, elbow on the table. “American girls have fiery spirits. They’ll get mad if they think you aren’t listening to them closely enough.”

“You speaking from experience, or what?”

“I am.”

“Fuck you, don’t make me jealous.”

Makima-san’s face wasn’t really all that soft, and she wasn’t buff or fiery either. She was slender and curvy and had a bright face. A really beautiful face. Denji slowly chews on some meat, regretting that most of the flavor is masked by the excess of ginger. He’ll have to tweak the recipe if he decides to try this dish again.

It does occur to him, now that he’s feeling more relaxed— Aki would probably say some shit like, _blah blah manners blah blah guests_ , as if they had guests before (aside from the odd drop-in from Kishibe) and as if he ever has guests now. Aside from Quanxi. He tries to recall the stuff Aki tried to teach him. Oh, right, he’s supposed to offer something to her aside from drinks. Even if she was rude first and came inside without asking, but that’s water under the bridge. Just like how she tried to kill him, he decapitated her, yadda yadda.

“Did you… wanna try some?” Denji hesitantly pushes the plate an inch forward. Quanxi’s shoulders stiffen. “I think it should be fine. You’re like me, yeah?”

He realizes, finally, that Quanxi is here because she also loved Makima-san.

“You’re really going to offer me a piece?” Quanxi says, her voice a bit tight. “Even if it may ruin your entire plan?”

Denji shrugs. “If she rises out of the toilet next time you take a dump, I’ll take care of it. I’ll eat her all over again if I have to.”

It really makes no difference to him, whether Quanxi takes a piece or not. He’s just being nice. It feels like the right thing to do too, like if he’s allowed some semblance of closure with the woman he loves— then Quanxi should too, right? They must be owed that much, despite that woman never loving either of them back. All the people she wronged and tormented would never get rest with the way things turned out. Denji isn’t sure where Kobeni went, if she’s still in hiding because she thinks she needs to be or if she just wants to stay away from her family. All the terror Makima-san inflicted on Kobeni will never go away. And Kobeni is just one person among dozens, or hundreds, or thousands who came into contact with Makima.

He doesn’t know what kind of person Quanxi is. Quanxi showed up trying to kill him with her insane fiend posse and Kishibe didn’t immediately try to kill her. Denji saw her tits and she gave him advice when the doll people were screaming and crying at him. Then she showed up again acting like… like… like him, looking at Makima as if she was salvation. The others were like that too, the shitty katana guy and Reze and those other people he’d never seen before.

Maybe he’d just gotten used to people trying to kill him.

Was Makima-san also used to dying? She may have deserved to be shot over and over and over again, but Denji still can’t accept that. That’s why he’s doing all this in the first place.

Quanxi plucks a small sliver of meat between her thumb and forefinger. She lets the sauce drip onto the plate before bringing it to her mouth and dropping it in.

She chews.

Denji watches with tired eyes.

She takes a tissue and spits it out.

“Hey, what the hell! I didn’t fuck up the recipe _that_ badly!”

Quanxi slowly blinks. “… That was a mistake. I now know what she tastes like.”

“Well. D’you feel any better?”

“Not really.”

“Tch.” Denji grabs the wadded up tissue and carefully unfolds it, grimacing at the mushy, chewed-up lump of meat. “What a waste. You know I’ve gotta eat this, right? I can’t throw out even a single piece, ‘cuz Makima-san could regenerate from a crumb as far as I know.”

“That’s gross.”

Denji manages a lopsided smirk and holds up two fingers, V for Victory. “I’ve eaten worse things. This is the second time I’m gonna swallow something from the mouth of a woman wearing an eyepatch.”

“I don’t want or need to know the details.”

“Yeah, at least you’re not drunk or gonna try to make out with me. Alright, down the hatch!”

* * *

He cleans up, washes the dishes, makes sure Meowy and the dogs all have clean water in their bowls, and goes to take a bath. Quanxi had taken up a spot on the couch surrounded by the dogs. When Denji comes back out with a towel over his hair he’s a bit surprised to see that she’s still there, now with Meowy settled on her lap. Well, if she’s planning to stay around for a while, then so be it. The dogs are good company but they can’t talk to him. All they do is bark.

“How many girls have you had sex with?” he blurts out, standing there with his hair still wet.

Quanxi doesn’t immediately respond. She’s watching Meowy’s reactions as she strokes his back. “Too many to count.”

“Whoa…”

“Is it my turn to ask a question?”

“Oh. Sure. Yeah, go ahead.”

“What happened to that fiend who was with you at the mall?” Quanxi’s gaze flits up to him. “The girl with the horns.”

Denji takes a deep breath. He goes over to his futon and tries to smooth it out with a foot. Quanxi's probably asking about Power 'cuz she wanted to take her to bed, or something mundane like that. He has to remind himself that Quanxi's not here to hurt him— intentionally, at least.

“Makima-san killed Power. Then Power came back to save me. But— she didn’t really come back, ‘cuz she was with me the entire time, even when I thought she was dead. I thought… I was done for. I didn’t think there was much of a reason to keep going. But Power revved me up again even though it cost her her life. She’s the reason why we could chop up Makima-san in the end, too.”

Saying that out loud doesn’t hurt. It _should_ hurt, like how he thought there’d be some lingering fear of answering doors, or how Power was terrified of the dark after what they’d been through in Hell, or how he went numb after he killed Aki. Well, it does hurt a little, like a small pinch inside his chest. That’s probably just Pochita trying to comfort him, though.

One of the dogs whines and butts its head against his palm. Denji pets it and sits down beside his futon, rubbing his hair dry with the towel.

“It’s a shame to hear she died. She was a cute one.”

“Nah, she was an absolute terror and a pain in the ass.” He can’t hide the way his voice slightly trembles. He wonders if it'd be worth trying to grab their Playstation from the apartment they had shared, or if the shitty landlord pawned off all their belongings by now. Would he be able to go there to see? Maybe. Yeah, maybe.

Power probably would have won that last _Tekken_ match. She usually cheated by pushing Denji over or grabbing his controller.

* * *

A wet nose pushes against his face. Denji blearily pushes the dog aside and groans, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He yawns, stretches, smacks his lips a few times, and looks over to the couch.

“Morni—“

She’s not there.

Figures. With a slight groan of effort, Denji pushes himself up to his feet and stumbles to the bathroom to prepare for the day. The dogs are all stirring in anticipation for their first meal of the morning, while Meowy weaves around his ankles. No, no, get out, the cat can’t watch him take a piss, that’s nasty. Nasty cat.

There’s no trace of Quanxi’s visit. The couch doesn’t look slept on and she’d apparently taken the liberty of locking the door before she left, even though Denji never bothers locking it since he doesn’t have anything worth stealing. There isn’t even a note or anything. Damn, he should’ve asked more questions about girls while he had the chance. Like, where’s the clit? ... What’s a clit? Shit like that.

“Calm down, you hungry assholes. I’ll get you your food,” he grumbles, pushing through the excited dogs. “Alright, what should I cook for breakfast today…”


End file.
